


all the seasons at their end

by amorekay



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Academy Era, Childhood Memories, Grief, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Reconciliation, Snapshots of Different Time Periods, Tea, brief humor and a section once called "hot sauna water; poorly steeped"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25547956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorekay/pseuds/amorekay
Summary: Chamomile tea, to calm the nerves and soothe the spirit. There’s a little smiling face underneath the words. Felix frowns back at it.This is completely ridiculous. He doesn’t know why he’s even contemplating it in the first place—it’s pointless.He knocks on the boar’s door.Four times Felix and Dimitri share tea and talk—or try to—over four very different time periods.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	all the seasons at their end

**Author's Note:**

> This was my piece for the [SWORN zine](https://twitter.com/ProjectSworn) back in December! I collaborated with KOO (@kingkrkoo on twitter) who did this gorgeous companion art that you can check out [here](https://twitter.com/kingkrcoo/status/1287564039971729408) on twitter. Please take a look!
> 
> Enjoy the fic!

##### winter.

Felix is eight, and he knows three things: he’s going to grow up to be a warrior like in the legends of the Ten Elites his father tells, his brother is the strongest person in the world, and Dimitri—who he’s going to the castle to see—is his best friend. He also knows he’s very tired. Maybe if he just closes his eyes—

He blinks back a tired yawn, stubbornly holding tight to the reins of his small mare. It’s a long ride from home to the castle in Fhirdiad, and it's the middle of a hard winter chill; he’s been so bundled against the cold that he can barely move his limbs. 

“Felix,” his father says. Felix blinks and his father is next to him, quickly dismounting from his horse. She snorts in protest at the sudden change in purpose. Before Felix can declare he’s truly awake enough to stay riding on his own, his father’s hands help lift him from the saddle and resettle him on his own mare, and then his father is stepping up the stirrup and settling in back behind him. He’s solid and reassuring and familiar against Felix’s back as he continues to speak of the legends he recounts each time they make this trip to the capital.

“There are many legends of Blaiddyd and Fraldarius, of course. The Ten Elites were said to be blessed with incredibly long lives, and their opportunities for courage and good deeds were too numerous to count. Many stories have survived, although the accounts differ depending on the source.” 

The quiet hum of his father’s words lulls Felix back into an almost-sleep as they ride. The wind picks up along the trail and swallows everything but his voice into the blanket of frost and packed snow around them. Felix is warm and content. 

“Which are your favorites, Father?” Glenn asks, riding alongside them, leading Felix’s little mare behind his own horse. 

His father pauses in thought, and then says, “Fraldarius, of course, was gifted a shield by the Goddess for the virtues of duty and protection She saw in her. Her role in the War of Heroes wasn’t her only known accomplishment with the Aegis Shield, either. I would like to say that ‘Fraldarius and the Forgotten Fire’ is the best example of those virtues. It’s also my own favorite.”

Felix perks up. This story is new. “Do you think Dimitri knows about ‘Fraldarius and the Forgotten Fire’?”

His father chuckles softly, the sound rumbling at Felix’s back. “I’m not sure. If he doesn’t, perhaps you can tell His Highness after the ceremony?” 

Felix nods. Excited and cozy, he settles back to listen intently to the tale. “I’ll remember it!”

Felix doesn’t remember it until he’s sitting, warmed by hearthfire and freed from his bundling of extra layers, in Dimitri’s rooms. He’d been too distracted at their arrival and the dinner that followed— _Glenn_ got to sit at the big table with the adults, while Felix and Dimitri were told to sit at the children’s table like always. It wasn’t fair! He’s sulking. Dimitri is pouring tea. 

“Felix,” he says, very seriously, and holds out the cup to him—carefully kept level between his stubby fingers.

Felix, trying to match Dimitri in seriousness despite his pout, reaches out and takes the tea cup from him. He tips it up towards his mouth and wrinkles his nose—the tea smells sweet and kind of like the bushes in the castle greenhouse. Dimitri is sipping his own tea very solemnly.

“How do you like it?” he asks, with a glance up towards his nurse. 

Felix hurriedly takes a sip. It’s too sweet, which makes it kind of gross, but Dimitri is looking at him earnestly and he doesn’t want to make him sad, so he tries to not make a face. He starts thinking about the story of Fraldarius again, and he’s about to launch into the tale when Dimitri exclaims, “Oh! Do you want after-dinner treats, too?”

He goes reaching across the little table they’re sat at for the plate his nurse had set down after they’d been taken up to the rooms after dinner. Felix eyes the sugar dusting coating the biscuits and now the tips of Dimitri’s fingers with distrust, but holds out his plate. He thinks it’s a little odd that here at Dimitri’s home there’s an entire routine in the evening—they don’t do anything like this at _his_ house. But he likes the attention.

He takes a biscuit and bites into the corner of it, breaking off a small piece to nibble on. Dimitri beams at him. Felix pauses, his pout from earlier totally forgotten. “This is good.” 

Dimitri, very eagerly, hurries to refill his plate. In his excitement he goes reaching straight across the table and his hand knocks into the tea pot, tea suddenly spilling everywhere as the pot goes careening off balance. Dimitri pulls back with a startle and his elbow flails out, hitting another one of the plates and sending it shattering to the floor, more following as he tries to catch it and yanks the tablecloth to the side, everything descending into clumsy chaos. 

The nurse jumps into action as Dimitri and Felix look mournfully on at the spilled tea and biscuit crumbs strewn across the floor. By the time the mess is clean, they’ve moved on to other things, Dimitri telling Felix about the newest training sword he’s been given while Felix listens intently. 

It’s only during the ride back home, his breath fogging in front of him in little puffs of air on the cold morning, that Felix realizes he never got to tell Dimitri the story about Fraldarius.

##### summer.

The boar is pacing in his room again. Felix is sure of it, even through the impenetrable silence of the monastery’s thick walls. It’s obvious, from the way he’s been showing up to class just before the professor instead of pointlessly early, dark circles under his eyes even more pronounced, that he hasn’t been sleeping. Felix turns away from the wall and curls into his pillow, irritated by the way it sticks to his cheek in the humidity. It’s miserable weather at the height of summer and he’s hot, exhausted, and annoyed. 

He can’t sleep. 

He’s up and going through his desk before he can think about it, looking for the little packet he knows he tossed in there somewhere after Mercedes had given it to him—unprompted and unnecessary and not anything _he_ had a need for, and it was insulting of her to think otherwise. The thought is still irritating him when he finds the packet and holds it up to read the cheerful cursive detailing its contents on the side. Chamomile tea, to calm the nerves and soothe the spirit. There’s a little smiling face underneath the words. Felix frowns back at it. 

This is completely ridiculous. He doesn’t know why he’s even contemplating it in the first place—it’s pointless.

He knocks on the boar’s door. In the brief pause that follows he’s frozen in the hallway, traveler’s tea pot held incriminatingly in his hand, sweat collecting on his skin from the added heat of the steam even with the towel he has wrapped around the pot’s handle. 

Dimitri opens the door. 

“Well?” Felix says, irritated again by the foolish look on his face. “Are you going to let me in?” 

“Felix! Of—of course. I wasn’t… expecting you? At this time of night, I mean. It’s quite surprising, really, shouldn’t you be asleep? Oh, but, perhaps the heat is bothering you too, as it’s been—” 

“You have cups somewhere, right?”

“What? Ah—possibly.” Dimitri stops hovering and goes, looking foolish and clumsy, to rummage through his things. He does have cups. Mismatched, dusty cups that he wipes off with the corner of his bedspread, looking apologetic. Felix frowns. He gestures for Dimitri to set the cups on the desk and pours tea into each of them—unappealingly weak in color. Whatever. He’s not making more of an effort. He sets the pot on top of the towel. 

Dimitri reaches for the dirtier of the cups. It’s nearly at his lips before Felix notices and scowls. 

“You’ll burn yourself, you idiot,” he snaps. “Don’t drink tea that hot without cooling it off first.”

Dimitri pauses. “Really? Ah, I—didn’t notice, to be honest.” 

“Is the heat addling your brain that badly?” Felix reaches for the other cup. The condensation collecting on the surface of it beneath his fingers just adds to the oppressive humidity of the room. He feels suddenly uneasy. 

Dimitri laughs, surprised and low. “I suppose you could say so. Something like that. I get… agitated in the heat.”

Felix’s hackles raise. Of course, he thinks. It’s nothing other than the beast. He’d been a fool to pretend otherwise.

“I remember,” Dimitri—no, the _boar_ —continues, the metal of his gauntlets gleaming in the candle light, his plated fingers looking peculiar wrapped around the tea cup. Felix looks up to his face, and there’s a soft, almost-sad smile on his lips. “How we used to drink tea like this, when you’d come to visit at the castle. The warmth was pleasant then, with hearthfires stacked to fend off the winter chill, and you’d always show up so bundled up that Glenn would have to help you with your outerwear.” 

“Don’t pretend,” Felix hisses. “Don’t pretend you remember what it was like.” 

“Felix—” he sounds exasperated, or tired, or—Felix shakes his head. It doesn’t matter. This was a lapse in judgement brought on by nothing but the heat. 

"I'm done talking to you," he says, the words sharp. "This was foolish. Start sleeping or you'll end up in the muck, boar." 

Dimitri doesn’t respond. He doesn’t protest. He simply looks at Felix and the farce of the whole thing is so abruptly clear, the nearly full cup of tea in his hands nothing but the Boar Prince playing at manners. Foolish and ridiculous.

Felix leaves without saying goodbye.

##### spring.

Felix still remembers the last time he saw his father cry. It wasn’t in those early months after Glenn died, though he saw plenty of crying then, from everyone and his father, all of whom had useless things to say about his brother and his sacrifice. It wasn’t even a particularly sad moment, or particularly fraught one. Felix, not long before he left for the Academy, had handed a sweet pastry to his father—one he’d been given by the new cook and had no particular use for. In return, his father had cried. 

It’s all he can think of right now, faced with this. 

Dimitri is crying. It’s raining, like it’s been doing on and off all week, and the cathedral’s ruined ceiling does little to shield from the storm, but Felix knows he’s crying. He looks the same as he did when they were children, shoulders trembling, hunched in on himself like he’s protecting himself from the threat of a blow.

Once, Felix struck his father in a fit of helpless fury. His father had taken it, with no repercussions, and Felix had been so vindicated he never thought until later how his father must have felt. He will never, he realizes now, have the chance to apologize for the blow. He wonders, if he struck Dimitri too, if he’d also never get the chance to apologize after. 

He’s tired of never getting a chance to finish the conversation. 

“Dimitri.” He drops his hands to his sides and relaxes his clenched fists. “I want to talk.”

The monastery is subdued, the toll of casualties from the last battle still weighing thick over the atmosphere, heavy as the clouds hanging overhead. Rain patterns against the windows, a low constant noise in the background as Felix waits for the tea to steep. Dimitri stands, like he can’t remember what to do with his limbs, in the doorway, his hair damp and plastered around his face and small rivulets of water still making their way down his dark armor. 

“Sit down,” Felix says. “Stop acting strange.” 

Dimitri, without protest, does as he’s told. Felix does his best to ignore him as he finishes pouring tea into two cups, emotions sitting heavy like a pit in his stomach. Dimitri shifts, the clack of his armor loud in the silence. 

Felix offers him a cup. 

As Dimitri lifts it to his lips, Felix sits down. He doesn't want to talk about his father. He doesn't want to talk about Glenn. He doesn't want to talk about the violence invoking more violence and the dead unburied and the hauntings of the past all made into a sick, twisted mirage of the truth in Dimitri's head.

He just wants Dimitri back. Dimitri, who sits clear-eyed now in front of him, his hands stained, the past unforgettable. But _Dimitri_ , who Felix knows now he could never truly let go of, and never truly did. What a fool he was. 

“I want you to take back Fhirdiad,” he blurts out. “The other things—we’ll talk about them when you’ve taken the crown. Don’t let me down, Dimitri.”

Dimitri stares at him, his hand frozen in mid-air, the tea cup looking dwarfed in his grasp. Felix frowns, suddenly self-conscious.

“What?”

“Ah, it’s—my name. I did not realize how reassuring it would feel to hear you call me by my name again, Felix.” 

Felix flushes. “Well, you better earn it,” he says. 

Dimitri sets down his cup and places his hand on the table, palm flat against the wood, and looks intently into Felix’s gaze with that one clear eye of his. “I will do everything in my power to,” he says, solemnly. 

For the first time in a long time, Felix believes him.

##### fall.

Felix is twenty-three, and he knows three things: he’s fought and survived a war, his brother is dead, and Dimitri—newly crowned, the Kingdom his—is the most important person left alive in his life. 

The designs on the tea set mimic the late fall scenery, probably picked out to go with the setting of the table. There’s a plate of after-dinner treats, coated in powdered sugar and dotted with the last berries of the season. Felix takes a sip of tea, and looks out the window at a view he’s seen many times before as a child in this familiar room.

There’s a breeze, a few leaves pulled and tossed from the trees, dancing outside the opened shutters. The sharp chill in the air tells of winter coming just around the corner. Time, once again, for building up the hearthfires and preparing for the long winter in Fhirdiad. 

Dimitri sets his tea cup down gently on its plate and reaches out to take Felix’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: i spent a lot of time contemplating how felix managed to brew tea in the academy era section, because i feel like he wouldn't be able to justify to himself breaking into the kitchen in the middle of the night to brew tea for the _boar_ of all people, and i also don't think he was knocking on lorenz's door and asking to borrow his tea equipment. my working theory is that he took hot water straight from the sauna. good thing dimitri can't taste?
> 
> you can find me on twitter at [amorekays](https://twitter.com/amorekays) and retweet this fic [here](https://twitter.com/amorekays/status/1287707915512471552)!


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